


Even the Losers

by Rae_Roberts



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 21:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11860281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Roberts/pseuds/Rae_Roberts
Summary: This story could be considered something of a SPOILER for Season 12, Episode 23 'All Along the Watchtower', so if you haven't caught up on your SPN viewing you may want to skip this one.In a world ravaged by endless warfare between the forces of heaven and hell, Bobby Singer fights on long after all hope is lost.  But like the old song says, even the losers get lucky sometimes.





	Even the Losers

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed overhead, but Bobby Singer paid it no mind. It had rained two days ago, one of the occasional, torrential rainfalls that hammered the burnt-out land. The lowering clouds had blown their collective wad, washing out trails and flooding what meager shelter the wasteland had to offer. For all the sky's bluster, it wouldn’t be raining again for months. 

He climbed a ridge, picking up a sound between the incessant grumblings of the sky. At first, he thought it was the wind, but as he got closer he could make out the melody. ‘ _Rock of Ages_ '. Bobby snorted. Fat lot of good hymn-singing would do, out here in the wastes. 

Still, he picked up his pace, careful to keep low to the ground as he crested the ridge. Whatever had humans under attack in the next valley didn’t need to see his fool self outlined against the lurid sky. 

“Balls,” he muttered, peering out from the shelter of an outcropping of rock. A wrathful demon, and a big one, too. By rights, Bobby thought, the god-grovelers cowering in a cleft in the rocks should be nothing but so many red smears on the valley floor by now. Then another flash of lightning picked up a gleam on the ground in front of the humans’ makeshift shelter. 

Water. A rare sight in the wasteland, a puddle left over from the rainfall. He chuckled appreciatively. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Somebody in the group had had the wits to pray a blessing over it, creating a barrier the demon couldn’t cross. 

They were lucky they’d got themselves pinned down by a wrathful demon, Bobby thought, and let out a humorless snort at the irony of any encounter with a wrather being ‘lucky’. But still, a smarter demon would have reduced their holy mud puddle to a cloud of steam long before now. 

He watched the dumb brute pace and growl as the humans droned on with their singing. They were damned fools if they were hoping to wait the demon out. The puddle would evaporate before it lost interest in--Bobby did a head count--half a dozen plump, tasty morsels.

He backed up, still crouching out of sight, his conscience giving him barely a twinge at abandoning the hapless god-fearers. He couldn’t save them. All he’d do was add a seventh bite to the wrather’s dinner entree. 

He’d just straightened up when a loud crash whipped his head around. The singing broke off, replaced by screams. Bobby crested the ridge before his brain had time to catch up to his feet. Hastily, he ducked back behind the rocks, but the demon was busy selecting a man-high boulder from the valley floor. Another crash ensued as it hurled the rock at the opposite ridge, just above the spot where the humans had taken shelter. Loose stones, sand, and dust rained down on them. 

“Don’t just kneel there, waitin’ to die,” Bobby groaned, struck with sympathy in spite of himself, but as the dust cleared he saw them scatter. It was a panicked retreat, each going in a different direction, no discipline, and he muttered a curse. Damned fools! People like that had no business venturing into the wasteland. Bobby ran headlong down the steep trail even as he cursed. He might just be able to save one or two.

The distinctive blast of a double-barrel shotgun echoed off the valley walls, and the wrathful demon let out a not-very-wrathful shriek. Rock salt, Bobby thought with approval. Not much use against the tough hide of a wrather, but a damned sight better than singing _hymns_.

 _Have an angel kiss, ya big lummox._ He threw his full weight behind the gleaming short sword, jabbing it into the back of the demon’s knee, pleased to see the woman with the shotgun advancing as the demon turned clumsily to confront him. 

Another blast of rock salt, and the wrather turned away from Bobby, its dim brain unable to decide which small tormentor to swat at first. He took advantage of its distraction and slashed at the back of its knee again with the angel blade. The demon let out another satisfying shriek and went down on its good knee, hamstrung by Bobby’s adrenalin-fueled attack. 

“Run!” he yelled at the woman, but a sharp cry answered him, quickly drowned out by a thunder-like rumble of demonic laughter. Circling the demon’s bulk, Bobby saw that it had caught her up by her long braid. 

_Damned god-grovelers and their stupid dress codes._ He cursed himself for a fool even as he launched himself into the air, catching hold of the demon’s forearm, thick as a tree limb. 

It laughed even harder, shaking the ground beneath them with the sound, loosing an arid blast of foul, sulfur-smelling breath that made Bobby’s eyes water. He slashed frantically with the angel blade as the demon reached its other hand out for him. It howled as he lopped off a talon-tipped finger, demon blood spurting, hot and black as tar.

Bobby spared a glance at the woman, still dangling from the wrather’s grip. She’d dropped the shotgun in the struggle, but still had plenty of fight in her, kicking desperately at the demon’s wrist and slashing at its fingers with a small knife. Neither tactic was having the slightest effect, but give her points for trying, he thought. 

Another wave of foul breath made him gag. Bobby let out a high-pitched, involuntary cry of his own as something slimy and disconcertingly strong tugged at his leg. Looking down, he was horrified to see the demon’s mouth gaping, its long, forked tongue twining around his leg. Close to panic, Bobby slashed at it, but a fresh wave of demonic laughter battered his eardrums as the tongue retreated behind its rows of fangs. 

The steep, rocky walls of the valley reeled around them as the demon turned its wrist, lowering the woman slowly toward its mouth, laughing as she kicked and struggled, clearly relishing her screams of terror. Wrapping his legs around the wrather’s arm, Bobby shimmied up it, for all the world as if he was climbing one of the long-gone trees of his childhood. Straining every muscle toward the woman, he did the only thing he could think of to try and save her: Bobby swung the sword just above her head, cutting through her braid.

He jumped as she fell, bellowing, “Run!” 

It was a miracle neither of them broke a leg, he thought as they pelted across the valley floor, the enraged wrather howling and crawling after them. Bobby sternly reminded himself he didn’t believe in miracles. They scrambled up the steep ridge, neither one slowing even when it was clear the injured demon couldn’t keep pace. 

Cresting the ridge, panting with exertion, they both ran-leaped-slid-fell down the other side, accumulating more bumps and bruises in their descent than the wrathful demon had managed to inflict during the battle, but neither one cared. 

 

“Yee-haw!” Bobby couldn’t resist a rebel yell as he slid the final ten feet or so on his ass, a miniature avalanche of pebbles bouncing around him. 

“Whoo-hoo!” The woman staggered to a halt beside him and stretched out a dusty hand, scraped bloody from their pell-mell trip down the hillside, offering him a hand up. 

Bobby drank in the sight of her, wild-eyed and panting, long skirt tangled around her legs, hair sticking up at all angles, and _alive_. Beautifully, gloriously alive. He accepted her hand with an enthusiastic “Yeah!”

“Yeah! _Fuck you, demon scum!_ ”

“ _Fuck you!_ ” Bobby echoed, on his feet now. No matter how cynical he’d become, sometimes a battle ended like this. Two humans, hopelessly outgunned but somehow making it through, revelling in the pure, ecstatic joy of survival. 

On impulse, he swooped her up, twirling her in a circle. She laughed with delight and twined her arms around his neck, her face tilted up to his in obvious invitation. 

_Trouble,_ the hunter portion of his brain warned over the novelty of holding a woman in his arms. _Killjoy,_ Bobby silenced it, and kissed her.


End file.
